Page 34 of Beyond Rosy Irish Twilight

“How do you know I’m not allergic to peanuts?”

“Because I know everything about you.”

Chills spread down my spine, but his easy grin told me he didn’t truly know everything. Instead of freaking out, I pasted a smile on my face and popped a few peanuts in my mouth. “And what about you?”

“Yeah, I know everything about me too. But that’s not unusual.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “I meant…” but then I stopped and frowned. I couldn’t remember why I said that.

“You meant?” he waved his hand for me to continue.

I giggled at my blunder and grabbed my drink again. “I have no idea.”

“I think that drink is getting to you already. Julio, easy on her drinks from now on. She’s clearly not able to handle her liquor.”

“How do you know his name is Julio?” I whispered.

“Well, see, he had this white thing on his shirt called a name tag. Name tags usually signify a person’s name, which is why I took a wild guess and called it out. Who knows, maybe someone else would have answered.”

I found myself laughing way too hard at his silliness. I bumped into his shoulder, just for fun, and grabbed some more peanuts. For the first time in a long time, I laughed. Patrick was full of fun and good times. I didn’t really understand how he could be in his profession with his personality.

“Oh!” I said excitedly. “I remember what I was going to ask!”

“Then you’d better hurry up before you forget again.”

I giggled and covered my mouth when I realized just how much that drink was affecting me. “I was going to ask what you got into job.”

He looked at me strangely and I said the sentence over again in my head. “It’s okay, I understood most of what you said. I’m here because of Asher. He’s my guy. I’ve known him for years. One of the best men I’ve ever served with.”

“Served?” I asked.

“You know, stood beside,” he added quickly. “I’ve been with him through thick and thin.”

I wrinkled my nose at that. “He’s kind of grumpy,” I said as Julio set down another daiquiri in front of me. I snatched it and quickly started sucking it through the straw. I was so thirsty and these were so good.

“That’s just the job. Normally, he’s pretty funny.”

“He doesn’t have a silly bone in his body,” I said, spinning my straw in my glass.

“He does. You just have to look for it. He wasn’t always like this.”

“You know what he needs?” I asked, a bright smile on my face.

“What’s that, princess?” he asked, his smile brightening my day.

“Daiquiris!” I held my hands high, as if that made any difference.

“Julio, another round! And one for my grumpy husband.”

Julio looked around in confusion and I spun on my stool, nearly falling off as I looked for my wayward husband. Everything tilted slightly as I scoped out the shore. “Wow,” I whispered. “There’s a lot of water.”

“That usually happens when you’re by the ocean. Now, if you want to see not a lot of water, I’ll take you to a pond.”

I chuckled again. “I’ve never been to one of those either. What classifies as a pond?”

“Well, it’s a small body of water.”

“Body of water,” I repeated, stretching out the words. “What a silly thing to say. It’s not made up of bones or blood or water.”

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